Scammers ran a sophisticated scheme and tricked a woman from Nizhny Novgorod out of 1.7 million rubles.

      December 24, 2025 15:07 Incidents

      A resident of the village of Bolshoye Kozino in the Nizhny Novgorod region fell victim to fraud, losing more than 1.7 million rubles. Scammers staged an elaborate deception against the 59-year-old woman, beginning with a harmless-sounding call about replacing her intercom key.

      According to the press service of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia for the Nizhny Novgorod region, an unknown person who called via a messaging app said that to update the intercom it was necessary to enter a code from an SMS. After she provided the code, other criminals contacted the woman, posing as employees of Roskomnadzor. They claimed that her account on the Gosuslugi portal had allegedly been hacked, and that a power of attorney to transfer money abroad had already been issued in her name.

      To lend credibility, the fraudsters sent a fake photo of a loan agreement and a forged audio recording with a voice similar to the victim's. Then the scammers said that a pledge agreement had been registered in the woman's name with a bank, using her car as collateral. According to them, the car had to be sold urgently or it would be confiscated.

      Later, a man who introduced himself as an officer from a law enforcement agency contacted the woman. He assured her that the bank would cover part of the loan, but she would have to pay the remaining amount herself. Following their instructions, the victim borrowed 520,000 rubles from acquaintances, added her own 200,000, and transferred the money to the accounts specified.

      The deception did not end there. The scammers persuaded the woman to sell the car for 950,000 rubles and to transfer that amount to them as well. At the end of the scam they extorted another 34,000 rubles. The total damage amounted to 1,702,000 rubles.

      A criminal case has been opened on the fraud. Police are conducting an investigation and identifying the perpetrators.

      Earlier it was reported that a 60-year-old resident of Arzamas gave scammers nearly 2 million rubles, sending them to a "safe account."

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